1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to graphics enhancement techniques and more specifically to a method and apparatus for dynamically modifying the graphics capabilities of a mobile device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Generally, mobile devices are designed to consume less power but support less than ideal graphics capabilities. However, as they offer more and more functions, an increasing number of users of these mobile devices rely on the devices to perform tasks traditionally reserved for desktop computers. For example, a notebook computer user nowadays often plays games, reads news, or even watches movies on his or her notebook computer.
To improve the viewing experience for such a user, one approach is to include a second graphics subsystem with enhanced graphics capabilities in a docking system or a graphics enhancement system (collective referred to as an “add-on system”), which the notebook computer can attach to either via a wired connection or a wireless connection. So, instead of relying on the inferior graphics subsystem inside the notebook computer, after attaching to the add-on system, the notebook computer can switch over to the second graphics subsystem to drive its internal display panel. After detaching from the add-on system, on the other hand, the notebook computer then switches back to its internal graphics subsystem.
Conventionally, switching to and away from the second graphics subsystem requires a lengthy restarting sequence. The situation is further worsened if the attachment or the removal of the add-on system is unexpected (also referred to as a “surprised attachment” or a “surprised removal” event). To illustrate, suppose an application A currently runs on a notebook computer X, and the notebook computer X is not attached to any add-on system. Then the operating system of the notebook computer X detects a surprised attachment event. In order for the application A to take advantage of the superior graphics capabilities of the second graphics subsystem in the add-on system, the user of the notebook computer X needs to manually close and re-launch the application A. If instead the operating system of the notebook computer X detects a surprised removal event indicative the removal of the add-on system, then the notebook computer X necessarily needs to go through the sequence of shutting down and rebooting to switch back to its internal graphics subsystem. These required re-launching and rebooting sequences are cumbersome and time consuming.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed is an improved way of dynamically and seamlessly modifying the graphics capabilities of a mobile device and address at least the problems set forth above.